Too Late
by purpleushi
Summary: Seto never told Joey, and now it's too late. oneshot, AU-ish, puppyshipping


**Title: **Too Late

**Disclaimer: **do not own. Events are fictional (umm yeah, because these people don't actually exist…)

**A/N:** just a bit of dribble I wrote as an assignment for Intro to Fiction and Poetry. Didn't start out as puppyshipping, but I realized the characters were exactly Seto and Joey so here you go. Side note—I will be updating 'vampire' in about three weeks, so stay tuned! R&R please. I apologize for my lengthy absence from fanfiction.

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It's the middle of December and I am standing outside in the rain talking to a gravestone. It shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't have taken me this long to be able to tell you what I've always wanted to say. I thought there'd be more time. I took too much for granted.

We've known each other nearly two decades, since high school. Sometimes it seems like it's been forever, but right now it's like I just met you. Do you remember that day? It was halfway through sophomore year. You were new in school; you'd just moved from Brooklyn to Westchester. I can't imagine how hard that was, coming from a city public school to our small all-boys private school, where everyone had known each other since pre-school, and cliques had been formed by second grade. But you were so cheerful, so optimistic. You were funny, and smart, and ungodly attractive, without even being aware of it. You were that person that everyone wanted to be friends with, that everyone idolized.

In other words you were my biggest threat.

I'd wanted to go to Harvard for as long as I could remember. I'd started preparing for my application when I was twelve years old. I'd planned my courses, my extracurriculars, my connections. I needed to be class president, varsity lacrosse captain, head of philanthropy club. I'd spent all of middle school establishing myself as a leader, a leader whose power was based on fear. You were dangerous, because your power was based on adoration, on love. And so I set out to destroy you.

I've done many things I regret. Cruel things I wish with all my heart I could take back. I have no excuses. Nothing I did can be blamed on anything but my own insecurity. I knew that if I dropped my icy act of loathing, I would have to admit to myself the real reasons why I feared you. You stirred up feelings within me that I had promised myself I would not allow. My whole life was directed towards gaining success. Falling in love was not in my design.

The day I was accepted to Harvard started out as the best day of my life. Finally, I could relax, at least for the remainder of senior year. That night we all went to some kid's house to party. It was the first time I let myself have fun. And the first time I drank alcohol. It was just one beer, but somehow it gave me the confidence to find you and apologize for the way I'd treated you. At least that had been my plan. I saw you standing there, clearly upset. Some guys from the lacrosse team were trying to get you to do a keg-stand, and then calling you a wimp, a pansy, laughing in your face, pushing you into the wall. I heaved them off, and pulled you away from them. You looked scared, like you thought I would hurt you. And I suppose you were right, I did hurt you, but not the way they had. "Joey I'm sorry," I said, but it came out in an unintelligible slur. You stared at me blankly. I didn't know what to say, so I did the first thing that came to mind.

I kissed you.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't prepared for you to shove me away from you like I was the plague. I stumbled backwards onto the couch, and you leaned over me. "I don't know what you're playing at Seto, but I don't just want to be some drunk hook-up for you."

"Joey, I love you," I mumbled, but you had already turned away. There, Joey, I said it. I loved you. I love you still.

I saw you in school the next week. I wanted to apologize, to explain my intentions, to tell you how I felt, but you had put up a wall against me. You turned my own ice prince attitude back on me, and I didn't have the courage to try to break through it.

And then you met _him_. I thought it was just a fling, that I'd still have a chance—you were going to Boston University, so we'd be close—but it lasted four years, and then more. For me that meant four years of seeing you at parties, always with his arm draped around your shoulders, like he wouldn't let you go anywhere without him. On the rare occasions I found you on your own, I couldn't get past "Hello," before he swooped in and dragged you away from me. And it wasn't just me he guarded you from, it was everyone, girls, boys, whoever. It hurt me to see you living like this. You couldn't have been happy with him, and it was my fault. One drunken night had ruined my chances with you forever.

And then one drunken night ended your life.

I know it's not directly my responsibility, but had I not been so terrible to you, you wouldn't have been with him, wouldn't have been in that car that night. And I would be telling this to you, and not to your tombstone.

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Fin

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